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Re: Treat or not to treat

the reason I'm interested is I started treating a couple of apiaries one year, the crawlers went down, the honey production went up(now I'll admit how do you know year to year with different flows different weather etc so its a judgement call), so I did a few more yard, and the honey production went up, until two years ago I was treating all yards except one, my control. now this hasn't been a really good year, but the one yard that is falling apart is the untreated yard, now how do you factor in that they leased the land out, they plowed under 150 acres of knapp weed, and all the golden rod in site. the only down side I've seen is that my swarming rate went up the year after treating(the bees feel good?),
I also use my partner as a test case, he doesn't treat or I should say didn't treat. My average honey production went up so much, while his has been going down, he started treating all his nucs, or new hives last year, now this year isn't much of a test, but we will see when we get a "normal" year next year. and no I gave up counting through a microscope.

mike syracuse ny
I went to bed mean, and woke up meaner. Marshal Dillon

Re: Treat or not to treat

There Snowed{18in plus in two days} in right now but humming{i was up checking on them today} i have 14 hives right now .
We are going to have some cold temps this coming week but the bee's seem to be doing well.
can't wait till spring.

Re: Treat or not to treat

Yes they where the oldest hives and they swarmed i'm quessing 8 times i caught all 8 and they built fast .
My SPM was nil and i know nothing but i am going to pull the queens in mid APRIL this year and put them in nucs and make false swarms and a brood break but i have to figure whats better brood break in april or in july after the flow and if in july what should i do for SPM in spring.
Lots of choices i want to let all the hives requeen themselves plus the nucs i make with the false swarms .so i'll be busy .
Can't wait till spring.
What would you suggest i'm all ears eyes? you know.

Re: Treat or not to treat

hmm, i'm kind of in the same boat, and still weighing my options.

i now have enough drawn comb to checkerboard supers (per walt wright's recommendations) above several of my hives for swarm prevention.

i only had enough drawn comb last season to checkerboard one hive, and it was the only one (out of nine) that did not swarm. that hive ended up doing really good drawing out more comb and making honey.

i did an artificial swarm on one of those remaining eight hives, pretty much following michael bush's recommendations for a 'cut down split'. i took the queen, two frames of mixed brood, and one frame of stores to make a nuc. (this was done on march 18, just before our main flow started, and just before the other hives started swarming)

the parent colony was successful in requeening itself, built up nicely, and gave a good harvest.

the nuc surprised me. it filled one deep and two meduims and gave me 6 meduim frames of honey to harvest.

the hives that i don't checkerboard this year might be busted up into mating nucs, as i want to try and raise some queens. but if i have a really good hive in the early build-up, i'll probably go cut down split again.

what kind of set up are you using glock, double deeps for brood?

journaling the growth of a treatment free apiary started in 2010. 20+/- hives

Re: Treat or not to treat

I use all deeps 10 black plastic frame 4.9mil cell. I'm going to give the checker boarding a try i have walt wright's stuff i know i sure don't want 13 hives a swarming but i don't mind a couple. my swarms did real well built up fast this year . I had 2 swarms in sept. and i figured they would never build up in time for winter i didn't have any comb so they had to make it well i put them in a nuc tower{3high}with a frame feeder and hoped for the best well they built all 14 frames and filled them with suryp and pollen and brood and i took out the feeder and put a frame of honey in and there humming away . Here's a pic of the nuc towers i was kinda worryed about having 3 high but there doing find.
I worry about the mite wiping me out but i'm just going to keep making bee's till i win i read about people that pull it off . Are you chemical free?
I'm a organic gardner and i remember when i started out things where alittle hard controlling the bugs but i'm 15 years organic and i have great gardens so i sure would like to do that with my bees i read about the OXALIC ACID what do you do about your mite loads? .
I use drone frames and pull them on day 21 and freeze them and plan on brood breaks and sugar dusting i have SBB on the hives after JUNE .
All my bees came from chemical free hives and the 2 guys i got my bee's from are PA. beekeepers that are working hard to make better bee's to deal with all the problems. I love beekeeping and i have the time and money to try and make better bee's plus i own a restaurant and i take pictures and put them under the glass thats on my counter where they pay and pepole just love to talk about bee's . When i do have xtra honey i know i can sell it .

Re: Treat or not to treat

@Glock:

You are my kind of guy. Like you, I refuse to put chemicals in my hives, and in the long haul I think it will work. Like Michael Bush, "I don't do anything to or anything against mites." Mites are not a part of my beekeeping. I'm six years into organic gardening, and I have lots of cabbage, spinach and cauliflower in my garden as I type this email. The first two years of organic gardening were the hardest. It has become a walk in the park since that time.

I'm less than two years into beekeeping and have three nucs and three mature hives. This spring I am going to the drone frames and do some interruption of the brood cycle if necessary. I like your apiary. It is so neat. It's a wonderful picture. I think if we "stay the course" we will win.

Re: Treat or not to treat

I love my apiary and can't wait till the weather breaks so i can start planting stuff and getting stung .
I have two bee yards one only has one hive in it right now but come spring i'll fill it.
I'm going to put in a nuc yard in down by my house come spring the yards i have now are 500 yards away so i'm hoping puting the nucs 500 yards away from the other bee yards might be better when it comes to robbing and drifting.